Main Idea: Japan had trade, a stable economy based on agriculture.
There was trade between Japan and China but later in time there was less trade.
Village life was stabilized with regular tax collection to support irrigation system construction and other public works. it build strong rural communities
Had an agricultural based economy and trade
Purveyors traded with military elite and intermediaries overseas.
Strong guild organization for artisans and merchants.
S
Main Idea: They was structured social class. Women were poised and culture but less involved. Later, women grew independent but also lost status. Warriors were highly appraised.
Aristocrats were influenced
Systems of ranks, it was usually determined by birth and allowed little mobility between various orders.
Japanese emperors and their courtiers inhabited luxury and aesthetic delights.
They (Men and women followed strict codes of polite behaviors.
Life was artificial and constricted but focused on the pursuit of beauty and social interaction
Heian courts with complex palaces and gardens.
Women of the court were expected to be poised and cultured as men
They were less involved with cultural imports.
Women rivaled men as poets, artists, and musicians and pervasive cultivation of aesthetic pleasure.
They played a creative role in Japanese production, played flutes and stringed instrument in informal concerts, and participated in elaborate schemes to snub or disgrace their rival.
They were involved in palace intrigues and power struggles.
There was a lot of rampant crime and civil strife in the capital.
Bandits freely roamed the capital. High officials hired bodyguards to protect a palace from robbery and arson.
Buddhist monasteries were armed to protect themselves and attack rival sects.
Spying, sneak attacks, ruses, and timely betrayals.
Warrior class was highly appraised devoting their lives to protecting.
They hunted, ride, archery practice and other activities to sharpen their martial skills.
The peasants supplied them with food and other necessities.
Samurais established a practice seppuku, (in the west Hara-kiri) with honor and death. A full chivalric code did not develop until Japan influenced from the Western Europe.
After the 15th and 16th century chivalrous qualities deteriorated and rituals became more elaborate.
The rise of samurais reduced free peasantry to serfs.
There was rigid class barriers form the warrior elite. They dressed differently and prohibitions against peasants.
Scholar-gentry elite emergence
After the success of Yoshino, civil strife undermined the authority of the emperor.
Common people were of growing misery, peasant forces were badly trained and poorly fed.
Peasantry were angry, peasantry revolted. It lead to brutality and destruction. Japan went from civilized life to barbarism.
A new and wealthy commercial class emerged as purveyors.
With the growth of commerce and handicraft industries, in the commercial class, some women grew independent, participating in guild organizations and business management and positions were inherited.
In the 14th and 15th century, women of warrior class lost status as primogenitures, blocking inheritance. Women became appendages to warrior fathers and husbands.
Women received little or no income.
Women were to marriage cement alliances between warrior households to slay for the family and be raped by illicit suitors or enemies soldiers.
Women lost the role as celebrant in village religious ceremonies and were replaced in Japanese theatrical performances by men.
P
Main Idea: The government was revamped by Chinese Ideas. Monks were in power (later with court aristocrats) . By the mid-9th century the imperial bureaucracy shrink. After the wars, mini-sates were lead by Bushi.
The Taikas reforms revamped its administration along in Chinese lines in 646.
The Japanese monarch into an absolutist Chinese-Style
It created a genuine professional bureaucracy and peasant conscript army.
It was resistance against aristocratic families and Buddhist monastic orders.
Buddhist monks were power in court and aristocrats feared street demonstrations.
In the 769s they threatened to engulf the throne.
In 794 Emperor Kammu established a new capital, Heian later called Kyoto. Buddhist were forbidden to build monasteries, but built around the city.
Kammu tried to abandon all continuing pretense of Taika reform and fully restored power to aristocratic families.
The emperor build peasant conscript army.
Local leaders were ordered to organize militia forces.
The imperial bureaucracy was shrinking by the mid-9th century, ran by aristocrat families like the Fujiwara. This family exercise exceptional influence over imperial ruling (upper administration and imperial policy) and married into imperial family.
Aristocrats could build rural estates to provide a stable financial base for their growing power.
Corporation between monastic orders and courts aristocrat benefited from each other. They expanded control, introduction to secret texts and ceremonies of esoteric Buddhism. (Especially the capital) Local lords were growing power. (Elite)
The pursuit of landed estates was also taken from elite families.
There elite families came to control land and labor and deny resources from court. They had little kingdoms governed by “house” in various parts.
Local lords and retainers were housed in fortress and on alert for attacks by neighboring lards and forces.
In with the mini-states forts, there were warrior leaders, bushi, the administered law and supervised public work projects, build armies (most effective), and collected revenue for themselves.
Mounted troops, samurai were only loyal to local lords, protected the emperor.
A fierce Samurai
|| A fierce Samurai ||
The imperial government’s controlled weakened in the 11th and 12th century.
Powerful families in courts increased their alliances with regional lords.
The Minamotos established bakufus, military government in Kamakura the capital. The feudal aged began. They were lead by shoguns.
After the Minamotos, the Hojo controlled Kamakura.
There was a three-claim system, where at the top was the Hojo family, then the Minamoto shoguns and the Emperor in Kyoro
||
I
Main Idea: The Chinese influenced Japanese life. Imperial families first had feuds. The whole country was at war.
First imperial families fought for the throne and then provincial families fought for the throne. Powerful families life the Taira and the Minamoto. The Tairas were first powerful and then the Minamotos were superior.
Chinese ideas, culture, and intellectual influenced Japanese life. As time went by, Chinese models seemed less relevant to the Japanese.
The Gempei Wars raged on for five years in Honshu between the government and peasants. In 1185m the Taira house faction was destroyed.
Yoritomo, leader of Minamoto, feared being overthrown by family (murdered them) weaken his regime.
There were many disputes between the Hojo and Ashikaga Takuaji (Minamoto) for the thrown. In 1336 to 1573 a new ruler called, Ashikaga Shogunate. The emperor and heirs of the rivaling center were exiled.
The bushi vassal of warring fractions would crush local rivals and seize lands of peasantry and old aristocrats and compete with warlords.. The court aristocracy was almost wiped out.
There was a full-scale war from 1467-77, feuds broke into war with Ashikaga factions contributing from the central government decline.
In this period, Japan was divided into around 300 little kingdoms, with warlord rulers called daimyos.
R
Main Idea: Shino and Buddhist ideas spread into Japan
Used views of Shino in natural and supernatural world
Traditional religions were meshed with Buddhist belief. Peasantry reworked Buddhism.
Buddhism achieved salvation through prayers and meditation, focusing in mystical diagrams special hand positions.
Peasants turned to the pure land, Shrines and images were popular.
Buddhism transformed aristocrats and peasants into a distinctively Japanese religion
Zen Buddhism stress simplicity and special to warrior elite, it secured place for arts.
Zen monasteries provided renewal of diplomatic and trade contracts with China. Shintoism and Zen Buddhism.
There were tea ceremonies that developed warrior dominance. Their were graceful gestures, elaborate rituals and subtly shaped and glazed pots and cups with tea occasions lent to composure and introspection.
I
Main Idea: Intellectual absorbed Chinese influenced and cultural there was revival in Chinese influence in Japan.
Poems and brief writings were on painted fans and scented paper.
The written script was borrowed from Simplified Chinese.
Poetic and literary works became more distinctive to Japan.
The most famous Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji, the pursuit of aesthetic enjoyment.
After the imperial weaken, Chinese precedents and institution declined.
With constant war and barbarism, there was a continuing cultivation of the arts.
Painting imitated earlier Song work with monochrome ink sketches.
There was also screen and scroll paintings of natural Japanese beauty or glimpses of Japanese life.
T
Main Idea: Technology often resembled the life style of Japan.
Became great forged, curving steel swords.
It resembled the luxurious life style: Unpainted building, with walkways, sliding panels, and matted floors. Artificial water places for fish.
Stone castles soon replaced these wood buildings, dominating Japanese landscapes.
Incentives were offered to encourage settlements of unoccupied areas.
There was a greater draft of animals and new crops like soybean.
Peasants were encouraged to produce silk, hemp, paper, dyes, and vegetable. (Highly valuable.)
There was growth in architecture with zen sensibilities, like the Golden and Silver Pavilions. (shelter for fostering contemplation and meditation)
The famous Golden Pavilion Temple
|| The famous Golden Pavilion Temple ||
There was famous gardens, like the Ryoanji Temple (great beauty in rough and simple).
In Depth: Comparing Feudalism
Feudalism exist when there is a weak central government structure, societies lacking resources, shared political values and bureaucratic experience to develop alternatives. Places like China, Russia, and sub-Saharan Africa had a feudal like governments did not follow Western monarchies in the Middle Ages. They were not true feudalistic governments. Feudalism often shows a political system low sophistication that gradually moves to a more centralized organization from purely local. Some societies had semi centralized power with effective power. Regional leaders had armies and kings made deals with respect to local kings. The feudal system in West Europe and Japan are different. They both embraced the set of political values, where aristocratic lords participated in them. They controlled the mass of peasantry. They also embraced mutual ties and obligations, and rituals and institution. In Japan and western Europe feudalism, there was a high militaristic, throughout they had many internal warfare. Warfare was more confined to warrior-landlord class in Europe than Japan. In both, Elite military was summed up with instances of feudalism, it promoted the development of a more stable and centralized government. (Values like physical courage, personal or family alliances, loyalty, ritualized combat, and contempt fornon warrior groups.)The military aura survived pass the feudalism in Japan the samurai and in Western Europe, states were to make war. Western feudalism emphasized on contractual ideas more strongly than the Japanese. They would seal feudal loyalties by negotiating contracts. Japanese feudalism relied on group and individual loyalties, not by contractual agreement. In Europe parliamentary institution shows the legacy of feudalism. In Japan, the legacy of feudalism involved a less institutionalized groups consciousness. In this time period, both developed industrial development and shaped the running capitalist economies.Feudalism also developed the propensity for imperialist expansion, with frequent wars. It also lead to the right-wing militarist regime in the 1930s. Japanese characteristic of high militarism idea lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbor of WW2. The pilots embodied samurai ideas to fight to the end and death. In Europe, since feudalism leads to (industrial development) industrial revolution in Britain. Feudalism provided effective power over Western Europe and Japan in a semi-centralized government.If feudalism persisted in each areas with positive outcomes, like any governmental form there are always positive and negative outcomes. How feudalism socially effects these societies, differences and similarities. Feudalism lead to imperial expansion and frequent wars. China or Arab, there was a centralized government, bureaucracy in China, thought it was not as effective. The differences form America (long lasting democracy and united states. one country) Europe (short lasting feudalism and divided states).
Japan, Vietnam, and Korea (Influenced from China and unique ideas.)
Summary:
China influenced the formation of these civilizations in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam over the first millennium. Bureaucratic systems developed in all these societies. In places like Japan there was a less centralized government, feudalism, so bureaucratic was to follow. There was unified law code. They took the idea of civil examination for government official to hold office, but many times family connection were more import. China influenced each society culturally. Pure land and Zen Buddhism spread through conquest and trade and was widely accepted. Buddhism rival, Confucianism widely spread and was taught in schools in Korea and used in government. The origins of the written language of Korean and Japanese were based on Chinese characters. Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese art and architecture followed many of the techniques of the Chinese. (Techniques such as porcelain pottery and Chinese style pagodas) Often the aristocrats or warriors of these nations would have greater luxurious imports, influences from China, and power over the peasantry. (In Japan, the daimyos and bushi: warriors) Many of the ideas of Chinese idea were further expanded by these nations. Korea created a better celadon green glaze for pottery from Chinese porcelain. These nations also created cultural identities with different cuisine, clothing, and social ranks. With Chinese influence the Vietnamese were able to counter balance Indian influences. The Japanese had rival province rival and military clans with honor and respect.
- The imperial government’s controlled weakened in the 11th and 12th century.
- Powerful families in courts increased their alliances with regional lords.
- The Minamotos established bakufus, military government in Kamakura the capital. The feudal aged began. They were lead by shoguns.
- After the Minamotos, the Hojo controlled Kamakura.
- There was a three-claim system, where at the top was the Hojo family, then the Minamoto shoguns and the Emperor in Kyoro
||In Depth: Comparing Feudalism
Feudalism exist when there is a weak central government structure, societies lacking resources, shared political values and bureaucratic experience to develop alternatives. Places like China, Russia, and sub-Saharan Africa had a feudal like governments did not follow Western monarchies in the Middle Ages. They were not true feudalistic governments. Feudalism often shows a political system low sophistication that gradually moves to a more centralized organization from purely local. Some societies had semi centralized power with effective power. Regional leaders had armies and kings made deals with respect to local kings. The feudal system in West Europe and Japan are different. They both embraced the set of political values, where aristocratic lords participated in them. They controlled the mass of peasantry. They also embraced mutual ties and obligations, and rituals and institution. In Japan and western Europe feudalism, there was a high militaristic, throughout they had many internal warfare. Warfare was more confined to warrior-landlord class in Europe than Japan. In both, Elite military was summed up with instances of feudalism, it promoted the development of a more stable and centralized government. (Values like physical courage, personal or family alliances, loyalty, ritualized combat, and contempt fornon warrior groups.)The military aura survived pass the feudalism in Japan the samurai and in Western Europe, states were to make war. Western feudalism emphasized on contractual ideas more strongly than the Japanese. They would seal feudal loyalties by negotiating contracts. Japanese feudalism relied on group and individual loyalties, not by contractual agreement. In Europe parliamentary institution shows the legacy of feudalism. In Japan, the legacy of feudalism involved a less institutionalized groups consciousness. In this time period, both developed industrial development and shaped the running capitalist economies.Feudalism also developed the propensity for imperialist expansion, with frequent wars. It also lead to the right-wing militarist regime in the 1930s. Japanese characteristic of high militarism idea lead to the bombing of Pearl Harbor of WW2. The pilots embodied samurai ideas to fight to the end and death. In Europe, since feudalism leads to (industrial development) industrial revolution in Britain. Feudalism provided effective power over Western Europe and Japan in a semi-centralized government.If feudalism persisted in each areas with positive outcomes, like any governmental form there are always positive and negative outcomes. How feudalism socially effects these societies, differences and similarities. Feudalism lead to imperial expansion and frequent wars. China or Arab, there was a centralized government, bureaucracy in China, thought it was not as effective. The differences form America (long lasting democracy and united states. one country) Europe (short lasting feudalism and divided states).
Japan, Vietnam, and Korea (Influenced from China and unique ideas.)
Summary:
China influenced the formation of these civilizations in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam over the first millennium. Bureaucratic systems developed in all these societies. In places like Japan there was a less centralized government, feudalism, so bureaucratic was to follow. There was unified law code. They took the idea of civil examination for government official to hold office, but many times family connection were more import. China influenced each society culturally. Pure land and Zen Buddhism spread through conquest and trade and was widely accepted. Buddhism rival, Confucianism widely spread and was taught in schools in Korea and used in government. The origins of the written language of Korean and Japanese were based on Chinese characters. Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese art and architecture followed many of the techniques of the Chinese. (Techniques such as porcelain pottery and Chinese style pagodas) Often the aristocrats or warriors of these nations would have greater luxurious imports, influences from China, and power over the peasantry. (In Japan, the daimyos and bushi: warriors) Many of the ideas of Chinese idea were further expanded by these nations. Korea created a better celadon green glaze for pottery from Chinese porcelain. These nations also created cultural identities with different cuisine, clothing, and social ranks. With Chinese influence the Vietnamese were able to counter balance Indian influences. The Japanese had rival province rival and military clans with honor and respect.